Because of the sheer volume of integrated circuits in the marketplace, packaging of integrated circuits in a manner that is cost-effective with high yield is important for semiconductor manufacturers in order that they can be competitive in the marketplace. One important process in the fabrication of integrated circuits is the die attach process. Because of the ever decreasing thickness of some substrates, such as tape substrates, the die attach process becomes even more important because of the challenges present when attaching die to these types of substrates.
The auto-boating process, which sandwiches a tape substrate between a boat and a clip, greatly enhances the die attach process for tape substrates. However, since the clip holds down only a very small strip of the substrate along its edges, the possibility of the substrate edges getting jammed with the clip windows at the ends of the clip is high because of the coiling effect when placing a tape substrate on a boat. This leads to substrate bowing and warping along its edges, which means that the integrated circuit dies formed along the edges of the tape substrate may have to be scrapped, which hurts yield.